NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

February 8, 2025

A Conjunction of Crescents

A waxing crescent Moon and a waning crescent Venus are found at opposite corners of this twilight telephoto field of view. The close conjunction of the two brightest celestial beacons in planet Earth's western evening sky was captured on February 1 from Rosario, Argentina. On that date, the slender crescent Moon was about 3 days old. But the Moon's visible sunlit crescent will grow to a bright Full Moon by February 14. Like the Moon, Venus cycles through phases as it orbits the Sun. And while its visible sunlit crescent narrows, the inner planet's apparent size increases as it gets closer to Earth. In a Valentine from the Solar System, Venus, named for the Roman goddess of Love, will also reach its peak brightness in planet Earth's evening skies around February 14.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

2024 YR4

February 7, 2025

Overview

Asteroid 2024 YR4 is a near-Earth asteroid, meaning it is an asteroid in an orbit that brings it into Earth’s region of the Solar System.

2024 YR4 is estimated to be about 130 to 300 feet (40 – 90 meters) wide and has a very small chance of Earth impact on Dec. 22, 2032.

This object is of particular interest for planetary defense for two reasons: 1) it is large enough to cause localized damage in the unlikely event that it should impact Earth, and 2) while 2024 YR4 has a very small chance of Earth impact in 2032, it has surpassed the 1% impact probability threshold to warrant formal notification of the object to other U.S. government agencies involved in planetary defense as well as to the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group and to the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs per the International Asteroid Warning Network’s notification charter.

As more observations of the asteroid’s orbit are obtained, its impact probability will become better known.

It is possible that 2024 YR4 will be ruled out as an impact hazard, as has happened with many other objects that have previously appeared on the NASA JPL asteroid risk list.

It is also possible its impact probability will continue to rise. The latest data will continue to be made available via NASA’s automated Sentry page.

Updates will also continue to be posted on NASA’s planetary defense blog.

Discovery

2024 YR4 was first reported to the Minor Planet Center – the international clearing house for small body positional measurements – by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in Chile on January 27, 2025. ATLAS comprises several telescopes around the world and is managed by the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy.

https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/asteroids/2024-yr4/

Golden Moon over the Superdome

Feb 07, 2025

The full moon rises over the Superdome and the city of New Orleans, Louisiana on Monday evening, January 13, 2025.

New Orleans is home to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility where several pieces of hardware for the SLS (Space Launch system) are being built.

For more than half a century, NASA Michoud has been “America’s Rocket Factory,” the nation’s premiere site for manufacturing and assembly of large-scale space structures and systems.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/golden-moon-over-the-superdome/

NASA Explores Earth Science with New Navigational System

Feb 07, 2025

NASA and its partners recently tested an aircraft guidance system that could help planes maintain a precise course even while flying at high speeds up to 500 mph.

The instrument is Soxnav, the culmination of more than 30 years of development of aircraft navigation systems.

NASA’s G-IV aircraft flew its first mission to test this navigational system from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, in December 2024.

The team was composed of engineers from NASA Armstrong, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, and the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute (BAERI) in California’s Silicon Valley.

“The objective was to demonstrate this new system can keep a high-speed aircraft within just a few feet of its target track, and to keep it there better than 90% of the time,” said John Sonntag, BAERI independent consultant co-developer of Soxnav.

With 3D automated steering guidance, Soxnav provides pilots with a precision approach aid for landing in poor visibility.

Previous generations of navigational systems laid the technical baseline for Soxnav’s modern, compact, and automated iteration.

“The G-IV is currently equipped with a standard autopilot system,” said Joe Piotrowski Jr., operations engineer for the G-IV.

“But Soxnav will be able to create the exact level flight required for Next Generation Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AirSAR-NG) mission success.”

Guided by Soxnav, the G-IV may be able to deliver better, more abundant, and less expensive scientific information.

For instance, the navigation tool optimizes observations by AirSAR-NG, an instrument that uses three radars simultaneously to observe subtle changes in the Earth’s surface.

Together with the Soxnav system, these three radars provide enhanced and more accurate data about Earth science.

“With the data that can be collected from science flights equipped with the Soxnav instrument, NASA can provide the general public with better support for natural disasters, tracking of food and water supplies, as well as general Earth data about how the environment is changing,” Piotrowski said.

Ultimately, this economical flight guidance system is intended to be used by a variety of aircraft types and support a variety of present and future airborne sensors.

“The Soxnav system is important for all of NASA’s Airborne Science platforms,” said Fran Becker, project manager for the G-IV AirSAR-NG project at NASA Armstrong.

“The intent is for the system to be utilized by any airborne science platform and satisfy each mission’s goals for data collection.”

In conjunction with the other instruments outfitting the fleet of airborne science aircraft, Soxnav facilitates the generation of more abundant and higher quality scientific data about planet Earth.

With extreme weather events becoming increasingly common, quality Earth science data can improve our understanding of our home planet to address the challenges we face today, and to prepare for future weather events.

“Soxnav enables better data collection for people who can use that information to safeguard and improve the lives of future generations,” Sonntag said.

https://www.nasa.gov/science-research/earth-science/nasa-explores-earth-science-with-new-navigational-system/

Buzz Aldrin’s Gemini Medallion Set Among Highlights of NASA Engineer’s Estate Auction

February 7, 2025

One of the 24 highly-prized sets of Gemini space mission sterling silver medallions is included in the upcoming auction of a long-time NASA engineer’s estate. The set was previously owned by astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, the second person to step on the moon.

The medallions are among the many important U.S. space program memorabilia and historic artifacts consigned to Goldberg Coins & Collectibles (www.GoldbergCoins.com) by the heirs of aerospace engineer Mark C. McClelland.

His collection (https://auctions.goldbergcoins.com/m/view-auctions/catalog/id/119) will be offered for the first time at a public auction in Los Angeles and online by Goldbergs on February 27, 2025.

The two-man Gemini space missions were conducted by NASA in 1965 and 1966. This is the auction catalog description of the medallions (lot #1253).

Gemini Silver Medallions, Complete Set In Lucite, Originally Owned by Buzz Aldrin Who Has Signed Along the Wood Base.

The complete set of flown medallions from GT-3 through GT-12 originally owned by Buzz Aldrin. These silver medallions were manufactured by Fliteline.

Having a full set is nearly impossible to find as only 24 complete sets exist and only a very few early astronauts had them.

Lucite block is 1 x 3 x 1" on wood base 1 x 3 x 8.5" Plaque reads "THESE COMMEMORATIVE MEDALLIONS WERE FLOWN ON EACH OF THEIR RESPECTIVE FLIGHTS."

Buzz Aldrin has boldly signed in blue Sharpie left of the plaque. This is a significant piece of NASA history, worthy of any museum’s aerospace collections or elite collector. Estimated Value $9,000 – 12,000.

As a NASA engineer, McClelland conducted extensive technical checkouts for simulated flights of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, space shuttles, and Skylab space station missions.

https://www.coinnews.net/2025/02/07/buzz-aldrins-gemini-medallion-set-among-highlights-of-nasa-engineers-estate-auction/

https://auctions.goldbergcoins.com/m/view-auctions/catalog/id/119

NASA solar mission data recovering after server room flood fiasco

Fri 7 Feb 2025 // 19:15 UTC

They can put a man on the Moon - but back on Earth, a busted water pipe managed to knock out NASA's solar mission data for months.

Data from two NASA solar missions is becoming available again following an outage that began in November 2024.

The affected missions are the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which was launched in 2010, and the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS), launched in 2013. Both spacecraft have collected vast amounts of solar data over the years.

However, new and historical data from the missions became unavailable in November after a broken pipe caused significant flooding of the building that houses the Joint Science Operations Center (JSOC).

Data from two of SDO's instruments is processed at JSOC, as is data from IRIS.

The vehicles continued to collect and downlink data during the outage, but researchers were unable to access it.

Repairs at Stanford University's JSOC are ongoing. In a January update, the SDO team noted, "Several pieces of electronics are delayed by the dreaded supply-chain issues we all thought were finally behind us."

An update this week from NASA confirmed that near real-time data from the two affected SDO imaging instruments has been resuming every 15 minutes since early January.

Most other SDO data processing has also restarted, with more data becoming available as system repairs progress. Meanwhile, all IRIS data during the outage period is now available.

There is still work to do; two data partitions must be restored from tape, a process the JSOC team warned would take several months.

As of the end of January, JSOC estimated that five percent of the data before December 23, 2023, wouldn't be available until the restoration was complete.

Data is coming back online, and alternative archive locations are available, but the prolonged outage was far from ideal.

For an agency that prides itself on spacecraft redundancy, having several ground systems taken out by a break in a four-inch chilled water pipe in a server room is not a good look, even if no incoming data was lost during the outage.

The incident does, however, serve to highlight the importance of disaster recovery planning.

According to JSOC, about 20 percent of the building's database and data servers were damaged in the incident, along with disk drives and UPS units.

The floor was submerged in some places by "a few inches" of water, although most equipment was raised above floor level.

Something for the next budget meeting when some bean counter gripes about costs.

https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/07/nasa_solar_mission_data_recovering/

Astronomers discover 'Quipu', the single largest structure in the known universe

February 7, 2025

Astronomers have discovered what may be the largest-scale structure in the known universe — a group of galaxy clusters and clusters of galaxy clusters that spans roughly 1.3 billion light-years across and contains a mind-boggling 200 quadrillion solar masses.

The newfound structure is dubbed Quipu after an Incan system of counting and storing numbers using knots on cords.

Like a Quipu cord, the structure is complex, made up of one long filament and multiple side filaments.

It spans roughly 1.3 billion light-years (more than 13,000 times the length of the Milky Way), potentially making it the largest object in the universe in terms of length, beating out previous record-holders such as the Laniākea supercluster.

"Quipu is actually a prominent structure readily noticeable by eye in a sky map of clusters in the target redshift range, without the help of a detection method," the team wrote in the paper.

The research is part of a long-running effort to map the matter distribution of the universe at different wavelengths of light.

Distant structures in the universe show a shift in their wavelengths toward the red part of the electromagnetic spectrum, a phenomenon known as redshift.

While objects with a redshift of up to 0.3 have been well-mapped, the researchers focused the new study on redshifts of 0.3 to 0.6. The greater the redshift, the more distant the objects.

The biggest structures in the universe

The structures reported in the new study were all detected between roughly 425 million and 815 million light-years from Earth. Prior studies suggest that even larger structures exist deeper into the cosmos.

The current contender for the largest structure in the universe is the Hercules Corona-Borealis Great Wall, a mysterious concentration of matter located roughly 10 billion light-years from Earth, and spanning an estimated 10 billion light-years across. However, the Great Wall's existence remains disputed.

Quipu was the largest superstructure the researchers discovered in their datasets, but they also found four more giant structures.

The smallest, the Shapley supercluster, was previously known as the largest superstructure ever discovered. It's now been eclipsed by Quipu, plus three others:

The Serpens-Corona Borealis superstructure, the Hercules supercluster, and the Sculptor-Pegasus superstructure, which stretches between the two constellations that give it its name.

Together, these five superstructures contain 45% of the galaxy clusters, 30% of the galaxies and 25% of the matter in the observable universe, the researchers reported in the paper. In total, they make up 13% of the universe's volume.

Space moves in mysterious ways

The researchers also detected the ways that this matter affects the overall environment in the universe.

The superstructures affect the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the microwave radiation left over from the Big Bang that's found uniformly across space.

The researchers also discovered that the local velocity of these streams of galaxies affects measurements of the universe's overall expansion:

Where the superstructures reign, the local expansion of galaxies can distort the measurement of the overall universe's expansion, known as the Hubble constant.

Finally, the gravitational pull of so much matter can cause a bending of light known as gravitational lensing, which could distort images of the distant sky.

Future research could examine how these large-scale structures have affected the evolution of galaxies, the researchers wrote.

Though the structures are only temporary — the universe is always expanding, slowly pulling clusters apart — their sheer size makes them important.

"In the future cosmic evolution, these superstructures are bound to break up into several collapsing units," the researchers wrote.

"They are thus transient configurations. But at present they are special physical entities with characteristic properties and special cosmic environments deserving special attention."

https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/astronomers-discover-quipu-the-single-largest-structure-in-the-known-universe

https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.19236

A tiny satellite showed it can take high-res pics from space

Feb 7, 2025, 10:42 AM PST

Tokyo-based startup ArkEdge Space claims it has snapped what is “probably” the highest quality images of Earth taken by a small CubeSat.

The photos were taken 410 kilometers above the Earth’s surface by the company’s CubeSat called ONGLAISAT, co-developed by Taiwan’s space agency TASA.

It has precision attitude control, a TASA-developed Korsch off-axis optical system, a CMOS TDI (Time Delay and Integration) image sensor, and image compression hardware that all fits inside its 6U form factor, which is about the size of a desktop computer or suitcase.

ArkEdge Space shared black and white images zoomed into areas as close as one square kilometer, showing buildings and roads with some details near Seattle and from the Patagonia region of Argentina.

The company claims it captured the “world’s highest ground resolutions” in the CubeSat category, ranging from 2.5 to 3 meters.

Reuters reports its mission is expected to end in March before its optical tech is applied to future missions, quoting ArkEdge CEO Takayoshi Fukuyo saying, “The pictures are as clear as aerial photography (despite) being taken by a satellite of this size.”

The ONGLAISAT mission objectives were to demonstrate the optical system in orbit, test a University of Tokyo co-developed altitude control system, and validate the TDI and process images, which all succeeded.

The satellite was delivered to the ISS in November and then they were deployed from the Japanese Experiment Module “Kibo” on December 10th.

https://www.theverge.com/news/608297/arkedge-space-tasa-6u-onglaisat-earth-images-validation

Croatia's 1st satellite captures its first views of home

February 8, 2025

Croatia's first ever satellite has just beamed to Earth the first image of its homeland.

The satellite, called CroCube, is a 1U cubesat 3.3 by 3.3 by 3.3 inches (10 x 10 x 10 centimeters) in size.

It launched to space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in late December on the company's Bandwagon-2 rideshare mission.

The debut image, released via the mission's Facebook page on Jan. 31, shows a cloud-covered outline of the Mediterranean country famous for its crystal blue sea and scenic coast.

"Although our land is partly clouded, we have identified the outlines of land and mountain ranges through them," the team behind the mission said in the Facebook post.

"Most importantly — Croatia is now among the countries that have their own pictures taken from orbit."

The satellite also sent home a short video and another image showing Bulgaria, which lies further to the east on the Black Sea coast.

The crowd-funded mission was put together by the Croatian Society for Education Outside the Box and Czech company Spacemanic.

The $124,000 project aims to encourage interest in astronomy and space in Croatia and gather data using a set of onboard sensors.

Space enthusiasts will be able to interact with CroCube's data and images via a mobile app that will display freshly downloaded images.

The first set of images was captured on Jan 28, a little over a month after CroCube's launch.

The satellite circles Earth at the altitude of 317 miles (510 kilometers) and will remain in orbit for about 5 years, gradually spiraling back toward the planet.

At the end of its mission, it will burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/satellites/croatias-1st-satellite-captures-its-first-views-of-home-photo

NASA will beam Super Bowl LIX to orbit for astronauts aboard the International Space Station

February 8, 2025

Are you ready to catch the big game? On Sunday (Feb. 9), across the United States and around the world, Americans and American football fans will tune in to watch the top two teams in the National Football League (NFL) go head-to-head in the ultimate post-season game, and even astronauts living in space will have the chance to watch the action live.

Sunday evening, the American Football Conference (AFC) champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, will face off against the National Football Conference (NFC) champions, the Philadelphia Eagles, in Super Bowl LIX.

Kickoff for the big matchup is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. ET (2330 GMT), with coverage provided by the Fox Broadcasting Company.

Many Americans will gather at watch parties and sports bars to cheer on their favorite team, contribute to the consumption of an estimated 1.4 billion chicken wings, and exercise general merriment for the occasion.

And the watch parties don't have to be limited to Earth.

NASA will be providing a live uplink of the Super Bowl to the International Space Station (ISS), should the astronauts onboard "choose to stay up to watch it," a Johnson Space Center official told Space.com.

For them, it will be extra late at night.

An astronaut's day aboard the ISS is not attuned to any time zone in the United States. The "international" in "International Space Station," means that astronauts of multiple nationalities are normally working aboard the space station together, and need to coordinate with mission control teams on opposite side of the planet.

Another reason lies in the fact that the space station experiences a new sunrise every 45 minutes as it orbits the planet at 17,500 miles per hour (28,000 kilometers per hour), so basing you sleep cycle on what daylight peeps through the station's windows would obviously be chaos.

As such, the ISS operates on Coordinated Universal Time, UTC, also known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

This puts NASA astronauts aboard the station 5-6 hours ahead of mission control in Houston, Texas (depending on Daylight Savings Time).

So, for any of NASA's astronaut cohort on orbit to watch the game, kickoff isn't actually until 11:30 p.m.

There are four NASA astronauts currently living aboard the ISS. Expedition 72 commander Suni Williams and flight engineer Butch Wilmore launched to the station in Boeing's Starliner spacecraft last June.

Their 10-day mission turned into nearly 10 months after NASA decided to land Starliner back on Earth uncrewed.

They were joined a few months later by astronauts Don Pettit, who launched to the station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and Nick Hague, who launched on the SpaceX Crew-9 Dragon tasked with returning Williams and Wilmore along with Hague and his crewmate Alexandr Gorbunov of Russia's space agency Roscosmos.

As of now, there are no on-orbit messages or content planned for the astronauts in relation to Super Bowl LIX, a NASA spokesperson told Space.com, but any of the crew are free to watch NASA's uplink.

As for which teams the astronauts might be rooting for, NASA officials said they were "unable to speculate," and none of the astronauts replies to requests for comments.

Thinking as an astronaut might, though, with respect for certain American symbolisms, dedication of service to my country and an affinity for extreme altitudes, I imagine NASA's finest would have to root for the team that gave them wings to soar all the way to space.

And, with that in mind, I suspect they'll all be chanting:"Fly, Eagles, fly!"

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/international-space-station/nasa-will-beam-super-bowl-lix-to-orbit-for-astronauts-aboard-the-international-space-station

>>22538813

>What happens mentally when those that mocked us realize we were right?

Boeing warns SLS employees of potential layoffs

February 7, 2025

Boeing has notified employees working on the Space Launch System program that up to 400 of them could lose their jobs as the new administration considers canceling the program.

Boeing SLS employees were informed Feb. 7 that the company was making preparations to cut up to 400 jobs from the program because of “revisions to the Artemis program and cost expectations.”

The specific positions being considered for elimination were not announced but would account for a significant fraction of the overall SLS workforce at the company.

“To align with revisions to the Artemis program and cost expectations, today we informed our Space Launch Systems team of the potential for approximately 400 fewer positions by April 2025,” a Boeing spokesperson told SpaceNews.

“This will require 60-day notices of involuntary layoff be issued to impacted employees in coming weeks, in accordance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.”

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requires companies to give 60 days’ notice of facility closings or other mass layoffs.

“We are working with our customer and seeking opportunities to redeploy employees across our company to minimize job losses and retain our talented teammates,” the spokesperson said.

The planed layoffs were first reported by Bloomberg.

NASA has not announced any revisions to the Artemis program, and a panel of NASA and industry officials said at the SpaceCom conference Jan. 29 they were pressing ahead with preparations for the Artemis 2 mission, the first crewed SLS/Orion flight, scheduled for April 2026.

They argued that the current architecture remains the fastest way to return humans to the moon.

However, the Trump administration is considering revisions to the architecture that include canceling key elements like SLS and Orion.

Elon Musk, the SpaceX chief executive who is a close adviser to President Trump, has criticized the current approach to Artemis.

“Regarding space, the Artemis architecture is extremely inefficient, as it is a jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program,” he posted on social media Dec. 25. “Something entirely new is needed.”

SLS has been criticized since almost its beginning, derided by some critics as the “Senate Launch System” for its origins in a 2010 NASA authorization act that directed NASA to develop a heavy-lift rocket using shuttle-derived technologies as a way to reduce the impact of the retirement of the space shuttle and cancellation of the Constellation program.

SLS launched for the first time in 2022 on the Artemis 1 mission. “The flight vehicle was proved out on Artemis 1.

It was a terrific mission,” said John Shannon, mission area vice president for Boeing Space Exploration, on the SpaceCom panel.

There were few changes to the vehicle itself for Artemis 2, he said, but changes in how the vehicle was processed, with some work moved from the Michoud Assembly Facility to the Kennedy Space Center.

“This is our second one and there are a lot of lessons learned,” Dave Dutcher, Boeing SLS program manager, said in a July interview.

“It’s a much cleaner vehicle throughout the build and test than the first one.” SLS, though, remains a subject of criticism for its high costs and low flight rate.

A report by NASA’s Office of Inspector General in August also found quality issues with Boeing’s work on the Exploration Upper Stage, a more powerful upper stage planned for the Block 1B version of SLS that will begin service on Artemis 4.

Any attempt to cancel SLS or make other radical changes to the Artemis architecture is likely to face opposition from some in Congress, as was the case in 2010 when the Obama administration sought to cancel the Constellation program, a process that led to the SLS. Notably, the vice-chair of the commerce, justice and science subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee is Rep. Dale Strong (R-Ala.), whose district includes NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, the lead center for SLS.

https://spacenews.com/boeing-warns-sls-employees-of-potential-layoffs/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-07/boeing-to-lay-off-about-400-workers-on-moon-rocket-program